Interstellar Age



After being sent away by Emrys to rendezvous with his new unit. Erich was stuck on board a shuttle for some time, with nobody but Tia to keep him company. However, as he approached his destination, a vague message was sent to him by an unknown sender. It contained little more than a group of coordinates and a single line of text, which was as follows. 

"Dress casual, and blend in." 

Though Erich tried to identify the sender with his slicing skills, the level of encryption behind the message was quite advanced, and he simply did not have enough time to crack the code. Thus, he simply sighed and decided to play his part. At least for now.

On board the shuttle, there was a small bathroom with a wet shower, and a change of casual clothing for Erich to wear, and though it was a bit flashy for his tastes, Erich decided to bite the proverbial bullet, and get dressed in it.

The moment he began to take off his clothes, Tia shielded her eyes with her hands and averted her gaze. Though if Erich were to have paid attention to the artificial intelligence, he would have noticed she was indeed peaking at his naked body through the gaps in her fingers. 

After taking a shower, which Erich desperately needed after being stuck in the woods for three months, Erich emerged where he quickly dressed himself in the set of attire that had been provided for him. Of course, the moment he looked at himself in the mirror, he suddenly began to feel as if he looked utterly ridiculous. He could not fathom in what scenario he would need this flashy set of clothing for.  However, Tia seemed to enjoy the outfit as she was quick to comment on Erich's appearance. 

"Wow, master is so handsome!" 

The moment Erich heard this, he scoffed before remarking about how he currently felt regarding his current appearance. 

"Handsome? I look like a fucking douche..." 

Tia was just about to respond to this quip when she realized the ship was coming out of quantum and decided to belay her complaints, and instead inform her master about this. 

"We are coming out of quantum. The star system appears to be mostly uninhabited other than a solitary space station. I don't know why they would have you dress this way, if this was your destination. But I suppose we will have to see what this is all about." 

Erich said nothing as he piloted his starship into the hangar bay of the space stationed, where he expertly landed before descending from the loading ramp. Once outside, he was greeted by several armed agents of Military Intelligence, though he would not be able to guess by the way these men looked.

For starters, their skin was brown, their eyes were dark, and their hair was dyed in colors that only a mutant would normally have. In fact, at first Erich thought he had come across a hostile alien species and was quick to draw his concealed weapon, which was immediately met with a stern voice of a superior officer. 

"At ease, Commander. We are in disguise, make no mistake. There is a reason we asked you to come here while dressed like that."

Erich was instantly confused, and because of this, the men quickly verified their identities by sending some information to Erich over their NeuroLink. The military intelligence profiles which Erich saw looked entirely different from the men in front of him. But upon further inspection, he could see that their facial features were indeed Germanic. Thus, he could not help but ask just what the hell was going on. 

"Are you guys from my new unit? What the hell is going on here? I thought we were supposed to infiltrate the Great Oni Empire and provide assistance to the rebels?"

The men did not seem the least bit surprised that Erich was not informed of their current operation, and thus they began to speak of their current objective while leading Erich deeper into the facility. 

"That is indeed correct. However, there are currently some complications in this regard, and in the meantime, while the higher ups figure things out, we are being redeployed elsewhere. You can consider this a training mission, to see how you perform before you enter the big leagues."

Erich could hardly believe what he was hearing. All this time, he had been told that he would be sent to the Great Oni Empire to do his part in getting revenge on their damned emperor. And yet now all of a sudden he's being redeployed elsewhere. Just what had happened to cause this? Naturally, he was quick to voice this sentiment. 

"What do you mean, complications? What has happened that is so goddamn important that we are being forced to redeploy elsewhere?" 

Although the agents did not want to get too deep into this matter, they could tell that Erich had a vested interest in the Great Oni Empire, and thus the leader of these men sighed heavily before elaborating further.

"To put it simply, the Oni Rebellion is still in the early stages of what we have planned out. More specifically, Kondo Yumi is being rather resistant to the idea of getting herself further involved in the conflict, and has been stalling for time. Without a leader to rally behind, the rebellious factions are simply causing chaos. Chaos that the Empire does not want to get involved in. 

Because our puppet is being hesitant to reveal the fact that she is still alive, Military Intelligence is forced to sit idly by and wait until High Command can convince her to get involved in this war. And as a result, our superiors have deemed it appropriate to send us somewhere else, at least until an agreement can be made with the Oni Matriarch. 

Our current objective is to infiltrate the Confederation of Human Worlds and gain some intelligence about a secret weapons project that one of their corporations is currently developing. There is an information broker who is willing to sell us the intel that we need, but he is only willing to do so because he believes that we are representatives of a rival corporation. Because of this, we are going to need to paint your skin so you can blend in better with humanity."

Erich was stunned by this information. He was going to the Confederation of Human Worlds? As far as he knew, the Empire had lost contact with their mongrelized cousins centuries ago. Everything he had been taught about humanity was that they were an inferior offshoot, one that was so different from the modern Germanic race that they couldn't even interbreed with one another.  Why would the Empire have agents embedded in the Confederation of Human Worlds? 

However, Erich did not get to ask this question, instead, he was dragged off to restricted section on board the space station, where he was stripped out of his clothes, and painted with an unknown substance to match the skin tone of the average human being.

Yet, they did not touch his hair and eyes, unlike the others in his unit, which confused Erich. And just when he was about to ask about this matter, one of the men answered his question preemptively. 

"Humanity is obsessed with altering their appearances. Supposedly, they do this to reflect their personality, or some nonsense like that. Because of this, unnatural hair and eye colors are quite common. Considering you are a mutant, we don't actually have to do anything to your hair and eyes.

Although there is one other alteration we will have to make to your body. For the purpose of this mission, we are going to have to amputate one of your arms and replace it with a primitive cybernetic prosthetic.

The technology of the Confederation is so far behind ours that they literally chop off limbs and replace them with robotic parts to enhance their bodies. Don't worry, once the mission is over, your corrupted body will be terminated, and you will be resurrected back into your proper form."

Erich could already feel like this mission was going to be a giant pain in the ass, but considering this was his new job, he had no choice but to undergo these procedures. Thus, he waited as his body was transformed to mimic that of humanity in a way that would not immediately catch their attention. 

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